Introducing our new (2005) first year IPN students
MARY ADEDOYIN
Mary
Adedoyin graduated in 2004 from the University College London in the UK.
Her BSc degree is in Pharmacology and Physiology. For her research
there, Mary worked on the effects of gabapentin on neuropathic pain
following ablation of lamina 1 neurons using in vivo methods and
electrophysiology. Her current research project at Dynogen
Pharmaceuticals in North Carolina, where she works as a pharmacology
research associate under the supervision of Mary Katofiasc, involves
conducting cystometry experiments animal models to investigate the effect of
drugs on the bladder in an effort to identify therapies for overactive
bladder syndromes. Mary has also been volunteering as a pharmacy assistant
at Urban Ministries, a free clinic in downtown Raleigh. Mary is especially
interested in neuropharmacology and in conducting preclinical research. Her
current interests are in the area of neuropathic pain, glutamate receptors
and ion channels, but she is eager to gain a broader exposure to other
research problems. She is considering both industry and academia as
future environments in which to pursue her career.
MARK A. CHEVILLET
Mark Chevillet received a B.S. in Physics with a minor in Mathematics in
2001 from Washington State University in Pullman. During his sophomore
year, he interned at a holographic technology company and developed a
diffractive optical element. He also worked in a nonlinear optics
lab and in an ultrafast laser spectroscopy lab. Mark's interest in
neuroscience began in college when he joined a discussion group
addressing neuromuscular feedback and its application to robotics
systems. Mark volunteered in a visual psychophysics laboratory and
helped gather data for a study on perceived motion. For the past year
and a half he has worked at Johns Hopkins with a computational
neuroscience group looking at the mechanisms of general anesthesia; Mark
is examining computational models of the thalamus. At Hopkins, Mark has
attended graduate classes and colloquia, and participated in grant
preparation. Mark is especially interested in the
computational principles governing neural systems, particularly how
information is encoded and shared amongst various regions of the nervous
system. Mark is also strongly committed to teaching.
IOLI DUKOVIC
Ioli Dukovic is
an international student receiving her B.A. in Psychology in June,
2005 from the American University in Greece. She has taken courses
in a variey of psychology areas as well as courses in Psychology of
Language, Drugs and Behavior, and Molecular and Cellular Biology.
Her first research experience was in the Computational
Neurophysiology Laboratory of Dr. Michael Hasselmo at Boston
University where she analyzed electrophysiological and behavioral
data of animals performing learning and memory tasks. She
participated in perfusions and brain removal, analysis of unit
activity and operant conditioning training, as well as gaining
experience in building drive mechanisms for moveable electrode
implants for recording unit and EEG activity. Her second lab
experience was at the Behavioral Neuroscience Laboratory of Deree
College at the American University in Greece where she has been
working for the past year studying dishabituation in the goldfish
using the C-Start reflex as a response system; she has also been
conducting experiments examining stimulus generalization in
sensitization. Ioli is interested in all aspects of brain-behavior
relationships and is eager to be in an environment in which
genetics, molecular biology, physiology, behavior and clinical
neuroscience come together to treat and prevent neurological and
psychiatric disorders.
DANIELLE M. EVERS
Danielle Evers graduated from Boston College in 2004 with a B.S. in
Biochemistry. Including her senior thesis project, Danielle spent 3
years conducting research as an undergraduate in the biochemistry
lab of Dr. Evan Kantrowitz in the Chemistry Department. Her
project focused on the study of phosphatase metalloenzymes in E.
coli and Streptomyces. Danielle is currently in the Los
Angeles area where she holds a position with a non-profit
organization working in education. She has learned to directly
serve students, has assisted in teacher training programs, and has
been actively engaged in the process of finding better ways for
schools to educate students. Danielle is eager to study learning and
memory at the graduate level, and to conduct research on how humans
process and retain information. She finds the area of
cognitive neuroscience especially appealing.
MELISSA A.
HERMAN
Melissa Herman graduated in 2001 from Boston University with a
B.S. in Human Physiology. Since graduation, Melissa has been
worked at the Salk Institute for Biological Science in San
Diego, California. As an undergraduate student at B.U.,
she conducted both lab and field work (in the U.S. and
Australia) on the taxonomy of fungi-algae symbionts. At
the Salk Institute she is in the lab of Dr. Catherine Rivier
where they are studying the hypothalamic regulation of pituitary
function, specifically the mechanisms through which stressors
alter physiological processes and induce pathological changes.
Melissa is also conducting an independent project on the role of
'steroidogenic acute regulatory protein' (STAR) in modulating
testosterone secretion via the brain-testes pathway. Data
from this research has been submitted as abstracts to the
Research Society on Alcoholism and Endocrinology Society, with
Melissa as presenting author. Melissa has taken courses at UCSD
that have exposed her to neuropharmacology and mechanisms of
diseases such as stroke, neurodegenerative diseases, cancer and
addiction. Melissa is now looking to integrate aspects of
neuroscience and physiology at the graduate level.
STEPHANIE
MAXFIELD
Stephanie
Maxfield received her B.A. in Biology and Spanish from the
University of Virginia in 1995. After graduating,
Stephanie travelled
in Japan and Spain and taught English as a second language for 2
years, an experience that built confidence and self-reliance.
In 2001, she received a Masters in Physical Therapy
(MPT) from US Army/Baylor University Graduate Program in Physical
Therapy. Her graduate education in physical therapy exposed
her to
clinical research in orthopedics, the rigors of publishing,
problem solving, and critical analysis, as well as
biomedical sciences, including a human anatomy/dissection lab, as
well as a lab for neuroanatomy. As part of her
payback to the US Public Health Service she has been on active duty
with the Federal Bureau of Prisons working with female inmates. She
has always been interested in the practical application of science,
particularly as it relates to healthcare, and she is enthusiastic
about mastering the neuroscientific basis for nervous system
disorders and their therapies as part of her doctoral training. Her
goals include teaching and conducting research related to language
processing, aphasia and language recovery after stroke.
SAKURA
MINAMI
Sakura Minami will graduate from University of California,
Irvine this May with a B.S. in Neuroscience and a minor in
Psychology. Having worked with Alzheimer’s patients, she
came to appreciate the difficulties of increasing memory
loss. This prompted her interest in studying neuroscience. Sakura
also plays the piano, flute, and trumpet and has given lessons
on these instruments and other woodwinds over the past five
years. This has allowed Sakura
to discover her ability to teach and how much she enjoys
teaching. At UC Irvine, Sakura
worked in the laboratory of Dr. Michael Leon studying spatial
coding in the rat olfactory bulb. Then, as an honors
thesis project, she continued the olfactory work by exploring
the effects of odorant concentrations, molecular branching and
carbon number on the activation of a specific region of the
olfactory bulb. Her project involved histological staining,
autoradiography, photomicroscopy, and mapping of C14 uptake. She
will present her findings at an undergraduate research
symposium, and expects it to be published as part of a
larger publication from the lab. Sakura
is especially interested in learning and memory as well as in
Alzheimer’s Disease.
HILARY A. NORTH
Hilary North received her B.S. from the University of Pennsylvania in May of
2004. At Penn, Hilary first worked in the lab of Dr. Robert Nicholls, who
studies Prader-Willi and Angelman’s Syndrome patients. In Dr.
Nicholls’ laboratory, Hilary learned the techniques of PCR, cloning,
luciferase assay, bacterial culture and prepping, mammalian cell culture,
gel electrophoresis and sequence analysis. Combining a love of
neuroscience and genetics, Hilary started her own project in the lab Dr.
Michael Selzer, where she studied spinal axon regeneration in injured Sea
Lamprey. For the past year, Hilary has worked fulltime in the
laboratory of Dr. Paul Greengard at the Rockefeller University. In the
Greengard lab, Hilary's project has concerned examining which amino acids on
DARP32 regulate the activity of DARP32 when they are phosphorylated. She has
used animal models of Parkinson's disease (MPTP, 6-OHDA) to determine if
the extent of phosphorylation of DARP32 at any particular amino acid may
contribute to altered dopaminergic responses.
Hilary hopes to use her Ph.D. degree in neuroscience
to help further the understanding of nerve cell development, health and
recovery from injury.
JEREMY PURCELL
Jeremy Purcell obtained a B.S. in Physiology and
Psychology in 2003 from Michigan State University. He has worked as a
teaching assistant, as an undergraduate intern in the neuropsychological
Mood and Memory Aging Project under the Director of the Psychological
Clinic at MSU; he has spent 6 months working as a physical therapy
technician in a nursing home setting, and he has been employed as an
activities assistant at a health care center for five years, working
with an elderly population consisting of individuals with varying
degrees of cognitive ability, ranging from normal cognition to severe
dementia. Since graduation he has served as an fMRI research
specialist with Dr. Andrea Bozoki at MSU, studying episodic recognition
memory in Alzheimer’s and Mild Cognitive Impairment patients. He has
gained extensive experience developing and applying event related fMRI
paradigms, and processing data. He is coauthor on two abstracts, and
first author on an abstract for the Cognitive Neuroscience Society
conference in April, based on work related to novelty detection in the
context of a visual recognition. He has also been attending graduate
classes in statistics and neurology, and writes editorials for the MSU
official newspaper. Jeremy’s goals are to become a cognitive
neuroscientist with specific interests in the use of fMRI.
